Customer Reviews

Live at the Star Club, Hamburg

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Whenever I listen to this, I can feel my heart pumping at a hundred beats a second. No other live album captures the energy and fun of this one. Jerry Lee Lewis was at a low point in his career. After marrying his thirteen year old cousin, he was in exile in the States and was only on the verge on being forgiven by Europe. That didn't however alter his perception that he was the king of rock 'n' roll, which in many ways he was. It certainly didn't stop him from being a wildman on stage, and as crazy as his 50's performances where, he is on top of his game on this recording. He plays his songs with a passion and love for them, and puts more heart and soul into the covers than the original artists probably ever dreamed of. A little bit of ego will carry you a long way, and Jerry's ego is massive on this one, resulting in the most energetic live album there is. "Kick Out the Jams" and "At Folsum Prison" are great, but are incredibly tame compared to this. "At the Apollo 1962" is a good, but not great album. It is considored the greatest live album mainly because it is the most influential. Despite the fact it proved people would buy a live album, it was far from the best. This, folks, it the best. Elvis who? Jerry Lee Lewis never sold his soul to Vegas, and is the true king of rock 'n' roll.

In the early 1960s on to the 1970s, Jerry Lee Lewis was probably doing the best rock and roll ever done by anyone. It is unfortunate that this was not what people were listening to at the time, but we do have this CD.

This was done in a triumphant tour where JLL returned to Europe starting out with a tour of Britain that was outstanding.I've seen a film of what was no doubt the greatest single rock and roll performance of all history on that tour, one of the British teen rock shows I was recently informed was a special for Granada Television with Little Richard opening and Jerry Lee Lewis closing. It drove the studio audience into a near riot, drove me into near riot seeing it, unfortunately before I owned a vcr!

But we have this performance. Yes Jerry is cocky and Egoistic. The last time he hit Europe he was driven out of England by booing crowds because of his marriage, and when he returned to the USA his entire career fell into a shambles and he was denounced as a moral degenerate, backward "hillbilly" and thrown on the ash heep of history. Even though Lewis's music got better and better, there would be no more number one hits (he had several that went number one in R & B, Pop, and County at the same time!!!)until he went solid country in the middle 1970s. Now he has already conquered England with terrific smashing well reviewed shows and crowds that loved him. Now it is his time to celelbrate.

Here he is back, and even though he is just playing with a German pickup band, he is really burning the music out. He is in his element with a hot crowd of people who are drinking, seducing, and partying like there is no tommorrow (and probably no tommorrow but a hangover), and he is rising to the occaision.
This is his glorious triumph, there is no doubt about it when you listen to this rocking and rolling music and here the man talk as only he can.

Somehow if Jerry Lee Lewis became modest, I think someone should get him to a doctor and tell him he is THE KILLER and needs to bow his head before no man. He can't stop, like old Johnny Lee Hooker said, the boogie is in him, and it's got to get out. I saw him a couple years ago when he was 65, and he was so hot and strong, that I had to leave the concert hall when he was done, because why would you want anything else to follow him

This is one of those CDs you need. Even if you don't have a CD player, buy the CD now, get the player later!

Jerry Lee Lewis....in deep remorse during this period from his son's drowninaccident ...Jerry Lee Comes to Germany and EXPLODES with such ferocity that everyone who listens to this performancejust listens in awe!!!!Non-stop rock & roll....even "Your Cheatin' Heart" comes across with an anger Hank Wiliams never imagined...Props to the Nashville Teens for managing to keep up with "The Killer"!!! This performance is a MUST for anyone curious about the POWER of Jerry Lee Lewis in his prime!!! Turn this one up REAL LOUD...sit in front of the speaker, and bear witness to "The Greatest Live Album" ever recorded!

Is this the greatest live album of all time? It very well may be. At the very least, it's the greatest live album by any of the "founding fathers" of rock and roll. Jerry Lee Lewis, with the capable backing of "one hit wonders" the Nashville Teens, blazes his way through an awesome set. Jerry Lee has the crowd in the palm of his hand, and don't think he doesn't know it. This is not just a live album, it's an epic document of a man that many considered to be a has-been proving that he still could rock harder than anybody.

Jerry Lee Lewis is the Frank Sinatra of Rock and Roll. He's never written a song that matters but his interpretation and feel for music is unquestionably great. His place in American music history is equal to Howlin' Wolf in the sense that he is both mysterious and predictable, simple yet complicated. This live record is demonstrative of everything Jerry Lee Lewis was and is. It is also demonstrative of why rock and roll should never die. Because passion in art is everything. And if there's anything this artist possesses, it's true god given passion for his calling. How can one man travel this road for so long? Playing honky tonks and stadiums. Being poor then rich then poor then God knows what. The peaks and valleys of a career that's been called dead then alive more times Elvis. It has never been what Jerry Lee Lewis plays on the piano that matters, but how he plays it. The spirit and fire that emanantes from his very being is the very essence of what has given rock music the longivity it feebly holds onto. What is so incredible is that between Jerry Lee Lewis and Iggy Pop, not much else exists in the way of true living American rock and rollers. Listening to this only-could have-happened-at-this-one-time record almost explains why. Almost.

Words really can't describe this record. It's too loud, too energetic, and far too ferocious to be contianed by lame adjectives like "loud," "energetic," or "ferocious." In fact, I think that punctuation would do a much better job of summing up the Live at the Star Club experience: "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Still not satisfied? See, the thing is, this album captures one of the most incredible performances in the entire history of rock n roll- Jerry Lee Lewis doesn't so much play these songs as demolish them, ripping through each number with the focused intensity of a laser, single-mindedly plowing through verses and choruses without so much as stopping to catch a breath. He plays the song with pure, sweaty, unhinged abandon, hurling himself across his piano, pounding the keys into submission, making it spit forth notes like a flamethrower, slaughtering the air around him with pure sound. His vocals, meanwhile, channel the very spirit of rock n roll, dripping with enough soul and sexuality to turn a nun into a go-go dancer (trust me, I've tried. Controlled experiment. I'd do anything for science, you know). His vocals transcend whatever lyrics he happens to be singing- the guy could be belting out the copyright information to a Portugese biology textbook and make it sound like a dance craze. In other words, Jerry's performance is rock in its ideal form, a frenzied blast of blood-curdling ferocity that'll make you dance, scream, and beat up the guy next to you all at the same time. Just like Beethoven or the Beatles, it's music for the ages. If you're human, get this. Get this now. Good golly.

Live at the Star Club Hamburg is one of the greatest rock & roll albums I've ever heard, live or not. Lewis bangs on the piano with a hair raising fury. This rocks harder than anything I've ever heard. The Killer is unstoppable here. He wails and plays fast and furious and The Nashville Teens sound like they're going to fall apart any second with the whole thing plunging into chaos. This must be heard to be believed. Buy it today.

This has been my cornerstone live rock album since 1964. This version, which has a sadly different cover, makes up for it by adding the extra track, "Down the line", from the same set, but absent from all previous copies of this album I've owned.
The original mono pressing was about as perfect as could be imagined in rock music, (once you got used to a german audience whistling their appreciation). If there was a tiny complaint it was that the lead guitar was a little soft in the lead breaks.
The band, The Nashville Teens (Bass, Drums, Guitar) were the hottest ticket on the U.K. circuit at the time, and Jerry Lee's astonishing, vibrantly commanding and imperious performance is so ably backed by all three that they remain nigh invisible, because they are right on it, and clearly having a ball too.
Various stereo re-workings of the original have not improved the soft leadbreak issue, though it has put the louder part on one channel, whether this has been done artificially or not I am not sure, but the result is the home tinkerer can get the lead breaks louder if he so wishes. All that aside, since 1964 I have been hoping to hear live rock music as utterly moving as this album, but, except the odd track here and there, nothing similarly pulse-poundingly magnificent and exciting in the way of recorded rock music seems to have happened since. As far as live rock music goes, this album is the bees knees, the cat's whiskers, the benchmark, the simple demonstration of how it's done right, and utterly killer performances of every single song on the bill.
Still in my top ten greatest albums of all time. party music par excellence. A five star album that age has not, will not, cannot stale or diminish, five out of five, with a standing ovation and a shower of bouquets, and, if we could get it, hundreds of encores.
Oh, and Jerry sings like an angel, and plays the piano with such incendiary genius that if you introduce this album to a piano player who's never heard it, you can watch them go white with shock. There are things being done to that piano you'll never hear done anywhere else, things beyond verbal description.
And is that performance of "Your Cheating Heart " the best cover version of a Hank Williams song you ever heard ? Or is it ? It certainly gets 11 out of ten from me.
And what about that version of "Money." ? I never heard one to touch it.
And guess who can outwhoop and outplay Richard Penniman, on Richard's own songs, no less ?
And guess who is giving Ray Charles (gasp) a run for his money that'd leave lesser lights for stone cold dead.
Uhuh, this album is rock music as it should be, stunningly amazing, hot hot hot, heartless mean and cruel, in a big hurry to have a lotta fun, and standing no nonsense from anyone. Play this album at neighbour annoying volume to get the full effect.
In conclusion, everyone should own this album. Buy a friend or three a copy for xmas, birthdays, heck, any excuse will do.

In 1964 Jerry Lee Lewis was old news, a has-been, a performer whose time had come and gone--or so everyone must have thought. Everyone but the man himself; in this performance the Killer leaves NO doubt that he's the King of Rock 'n Roll.

The band does an impressive job of (mostly) keeping up with a man who sounds on the point of spontaneous combustion, but the spotlight is all his; the fire and fury that pack this set are beyond belief. And Jerry Lee never lets up, as if his reputation as one of the most talented and passionate performers of the century rested on this one show. If it did, he would still have earned it.

Excerpted from the All Music Guide (generally grade inflaters but S.T.E. reviewed this one spot on: "...Live at the Star Club is extraordinary -- the purest, hardest rock & roll ever committed to record. It starts with the Killer launching into "Mean Woman Blues" at a tempo far faster than the band is prepared for, and he never, ever lets go from that moment forward. He pounds the piano into submission, sings himself hoarse, berates the band ("What'd I Say, Pt. 2" has him yelling at a Nashville Teen to "play that thing right, boy!"), increases the tempo on each song, and joins in with the audience chanting his name. It's a crazed, unhinged performance, with the Nashville Teens running wild to follow his lead, and it's a great testament to the bandmembers that they nearly manage to keep up with him. One of the profound pleasures of this record is hearing the band try to run with Jerry Lee, which is exceeded only by the sheer dementia of the Killer's performance; he sounds possessed, hitting the keys so hard it sounds like they'll break, and rocking harder than anybody had before or since. Compared to this, thrash metal sounds tame, the Stooges sound constrained, hardcore punk seems neutered, and the Sex Pistols sound like wimps. Rock & roll is about the fire in the performance, and nothing sounds as fiery as this; nothing hits as hard or sounds as loud, either. It is no stretch to call this the greatest live album ever, nor is it a stretch to call it the greatest rock & roll album ever recorded. Even so, words can't describe the music here -- it truly has to be heard to be believed."